Rheumatoid arthritis crippling the hands, fibromyalgia racking the old bod (I said "racking the old bod" not "rocking"), eyes fecked and online tech problems then I get this in my email:
Dear Lulu User,
Effective 1 August 2021, there will be an update to our pricing. This affects any new projects created and printed after the effective date. An overview of these updates is below:
Our print facilities have experienced an increase in all areas of the supply chain over the last 12 months and we’ve done our best to absorb as much of them as we can. Manufacture rates across all product types have been updated, which represents an average price increase of 8.5%.
Existing projects will not experience the pricing update unless a revision is made or the price is edited by you.
Thank you for your continued support as we help your books reach customers across the globe!
In case this is all new to you it isn't to me or people who use print on demand (POD). Irt has happened five times before and let me explain what this means.
No, the price of current books will not be affected. How this works is that the "difference" is taken out of sales money for those books. Considering that I have deliberately priced all of my books as low as I can and get (after the POD and Printer and in the US the IRS take their cut) ....well, to be honest only a few pence on some books and selling one of the 300+ pp books with the low cover price of £20 makes me £1.95 (just think of that as being in $s).
I am seriously left with a few options.
1. One is to withdraw the books from sale and considering all the pain the POD has put me through in the past to get the books uploaded...no.
2. Leave the books priced as they are and basically give them away for free.
3. The other option is one I do not like but that involves pushing up the cover prices before their date of reckoning to a truer commercial rate.
Therefore it is option 3 as it is the only real choice I have. So if there are books on the store front you have been thinking about buying best to do so before the suddent dumped on us 1st August.
A reminder that you are not paying extortionate international postal fees when you order online, Print on demand books mean that you order them in your currency and they are printed IN your region and so your regional postage rates apply. This is why the books can get to you so fast -its all regionalised around the world -Japan, Australia, Malaysia, any part of Africa or Europe. Easy. https://www.lulu.com/spotlight/hoopercomicsuk
I have to keep making this all clear. But I have until 1st August to start working out the new higher prices and after that......
